National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) president Steve Sanetti is warning gun owners to be beware the mainstream media’s efforts to pit one gun rights group against another in an attempt to divide and conquer.

For example, Sanetti points out that a March 5 Washington Post article is constructed around the theory that the NSSF does not stand with the NRA in opposition to universal background checks.

The WAPO does this by equating the NSSF’s support for improvements to the current background check system with support for universal background checks.

Sanetti rejects this argument out of hand, and makes it clear that when the NSSF says they support an “effective, complete background check,” they mean making the one we have now work better, by adding certain mental health components to it.

But regarding universal background checks, the NSSF stands in opposition right alongside the NRA.

Regarding so-called universal background checks, or background checks that extend beyond retail sales or to private transfers such as a father passing on his favorite hunting rifle to his son, our big concern is one shared by millions of firearm owners–that enforcing checks of used firearm transfers between individuals will lead to the creation of a national gun registry of firearms, something that Congress has expressly prohibited.